Surrey Langley Skytrain - Expo Line Extension | Proposed

[xd_1771]

Why in the blazes would they construct a RapidBus to serve some 20-30k people only? There is also already good service from Walnut Grove to Guildford. The RapidBus is meant to serve the rest of Langley, otherwise they wouldn't bother wasting so much money on the RapidBus, or perhaps even the highway. I can see a lot of Langley travellers bound for Vancouver area skipping the busy and congested Fraser Highway & 502 by taking this bus to Coquitlam (for Vancouver-bound) or using it to get to Surrey Central with the speed advantage of a new and traffic-free highway, easing at least some of the load on the 502 and opening up the buses for Clayton and Fleetwood riders, the riders that have the most trouble getting on the bus.

[SpongeG]

i think surrey needs something for people who want to travel within surrey - what exists is perfect for serving people's needs to get into vancouver if they have to go there

whatever they build can be linked and people transfer like they do the world over london, hong kong, new york

are people in surrey and vancouver so spoiled that they must get door to door no transfer public transit?? like really? come on

I can only use the people i know who live in surrey for what their needs are and of the people I know they all live and work in surrey and drive because they have no viable transit options to get anywhere within surrey - when they go into vancouver for the fireworks or whatever they use transit from teh park n ride

[Whalleyboy]

I second that agreement.
Personally I Dont even car the rapid bus is going over the bridge. To me its more the fact its connecting guildford/central with Walnut Grove and Willoughby area.

[xd_1771]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

i think surrey needs something for people who want to travel within surrey - what exists is perfect for serving people's needs to get into vancouver if they have to go there

whatever they build can be linked and people transfer like they do the world over london, hong kong, new york

are people in surrey and vancouver so spoiled that they must get door to door no transfer public transit?? like really? come on

I only used the people i know who live in surrey of the people I know they all live and work in surrey and drive because they have no viable transit options to get anywhere within surrey - when they go into vancouver for the fireworks or whatever they use transit from teh park n ride

Hence a Newton-Whalley-Guildford line first. Unfortunately, where the Fraser Highway corridor is concerned, the majority of the City of Surrey is not actually being serviced at all and these traffic patterns may not actually change. The bulk of the City of Surrey will remain suburban in development except perhaps around Whalley, and perhaps even car-oriented in nature. I would like to see Surrey grow into something more akin to Burnaby - multiple town centres that are close by, connected and can support each other. The building needs to be up, not out; out should be reserved for when up has happened enough for the city to be able to actually well-support the outward-growing communities without affecting existing ones. By not building to places such as Guildford, you would be wasting a lot of people's money, i.e. the expanded mall might fall after awhile back to a local mall rather than serving an entire region, due to lack of proper transit services to it.

[C.Lan]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

i think surrey needs something for people who want to travel within surrey - what exists is perfect for serving people's needs to get into vancouver if they have to go there

whatever they build can be linked and people transfer like they do the world over london, hong kong, new york

are people in surrey and vancouver so spoiled that they must get door to door no transfer public transit?? like really? come on

I can only use the people i know who live in surrey for what their needs are and of the people I know they all live and work in surrey and drive because they have no viable transit options to get anywhere within surrey - when they go into vancouver for the fireworks or whatever they use transit from teh park n ride

You hit the nail on the head, transit is a matter of people maneuvering within the system to get their own transportation across, which sometimes means using one's own (more accessible) vehicles.

[invisibleairwaves]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

Why in the blazes would they construct a RapidBus to serve some 20-30k people only? There is also already good service from Walnut Grove to Guildford. The RapidBus is meant to serve the rest of Langley, otherwise they wouldn't bother wasting so much money on the RapidBus, or perhaps even the highway. I can see a lot of Langley travellers bound for Vancouver area skipping the busy and congested Fraser Highway & 502 by taking this bus to Coquitlam (for Vancouver-bound) or using it to get to Surrey Central with the speed advantage of a new and traffic-free highway, easing at least some of the load on the 502 and opening up the buses for Clayton and Fleetwood riders, the riders that have the most trouble getting on the bus.

It's all politics. It's obvious that the decision to have the RapidBus was not based on actually serving a need, but to instead enhance the image of the Gateway project.

I just don't think your scenario is realistic at all. Yes, people want to avoid Fraser Highway, but the truth is that 200th is a gong show at times as well. And with infrequent bus service, adding yet another route and transfer just to get to the RapidBus is not an appealing option. Combine that with the fact that Langley doesn't make up a huge percentage of 502 ridership anyways, and it's hard to imagine that the RapidBus will have any meaningful impact at all.

[tybuilding]

Originally Posted by invisibleairwaves

Argh.

Sick of hearing that the Rapidbus is a solution for transit in Langley. It's completely geographically flawed. It will serve Walnut Grove and maybe parts of north Willoughby. It will not serve Langley City or Willowbrook, where the 502's Langley ridership comes from. Langley is a big place, and what helps in one area of it will not necessarily help somewhere else. It's like saying "Why should we expand transit in Surrey? We already have the Skytrain in Whalley". The Rapidbus is simply not relevant in any way to a discussion of transit on the Fraser Highway corridor.

Why not start this rapid bus in downtown Langley? It seems like it will be a pretty short route if it starts at 200th and Hwy 1 and ends at Coquitlam, probably only 30-40 minutes max. It could compliment the 501 which goes every 15 minutes on 200st at its max frequency.

[Zassk]

I think it is a pretty safe assumption that the RapidBus will be extended to downtown Langley.

[tybuilding]

Hello,

Welcome to the third Surrey Rapid Transit Study Community Update to provide you
with the latest information about the study and consultation process.

Save a date! Phase 2 Public Consultation coming up in May and June

From May 26 to June 24, 2011, we will be holding public consultation on the
preliminary designs and evaluation of the alternatives for expanding rapid
transit for Surrey and surrounding communities that were first presented to the
public in October 2010.

Join us at one of the following consultation sessions and online to learn more
about potential station locations, alignments, costs, benefits and impacts of
each alternative, and have your say. Several dates, times and locations are
available for your convenience. Mark your calendars with the event that best
suits your schedule.

Webinar
Monday, May 30
7 p.m. to 8 p.m.
translink.ca/surreyrapidtransitstudy

In your community
6:30 p.m. ? 7 p.m. Open House
7 p.m. ? 9 p.m. Presentation and Workshop

Tuesday, May 31
Langley Hampton Inn
Rooms A, B & C
19500 Langley Bypass
Surrey

Thursday, June 2
SFU Surrey
Rooms 5100 & 5140
13450 102 Avenue
Surrey

Wednesday, June 8
Newton Seniors Centre ? Auditorium
13775 70 Avenue
Surrey

Thursday, June 9
Guildford Sheraton Hotel
15269 104 Street
Surrey

Can?t make one of these sessions? Don?t worry! Join us online from May 26 to
June 24 to learn more, complete the online questionnaire and have your say.

Your input counts

We?re not picking a favourite alternative in this round of consultation. We
still have more work to do! Your feedback will help us update the alternative
designs and finalize the evaluation, and there will be more opportunities to get
involved in late 2011/early 2012. This study will help decision-makers
understand all the costs, benefits and impacts of each alternative ? and the
trade-offs that have to be made ? to help them determine the right solution.

Join the consultation and be part of the plan.

Help spread the word

The attached ad has information about how to get involved in this consultation,
including dates, times and locations. The ad will appear in local papers later
this month. Please share it with friends, neighbours, and others who want to be
part of this process.

Should you have any questions about the study, please do not hesitate to contact
me at Vincent.Gonsalves@... or phone: 604.453.3043.


Thanks


Vincent Gonsalves
Community Relations Coordinator
TransLink (South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority)
1600 - 4720 Kingsway | Burnaby, BC | V5H 4N2 | Canada
Tel: 604-453-3043 Fax: 604-453-4677
Email: vincent.gonsalves@...

[BCPhil]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

Why in the blazes would they construct a RapidBus to serve some 20-30k people only? There is also already good service from Walnut Grove to Guildford. The RapidBus is meant to serve the rest of Langley, otherwise they wouldn't bother wasting so much money on the RapidBus, or perhaps even the highway. I can see a lot of Langley travellers bound for Vancouver area skipping the busy and congested Fraser Highway & 502 by taking this bus to Coquitlam (for Vancouver-bound) or using it to get to Surrey Central with the speed advantage of a new and traffic-free highway, easing at least some of the load on the 502 and opening up the buses for Clayton and Fleetwood riders, the riders that have the most trouble getting on the bus.

20,000 people is a lot. If you figure that a fast, true rapid service should attract the average regional ridership, between 16% and 18% of those people will ride transit. But lets say even just 10% of those people ride the rapid bus, that's 1000 daily riders (2000 boardings for round trips). At about 60 riders per highway style coach, that's around 17 trips needed to move that number of people, one way out, mostly in the morning.

The other source of ridership for this rapid bus system is Abbotsford. While many people can ride the WCE in from Abbotsford via Mission, it doesn't run all day and does not suit trips to Surrey or Burnaby. ValleyMax buses and Abbostford drivers will go to the Walnut Grove exchange (until service is eventually extended to Abbostford) and take the rapid bus into Lougheed or Surrey.

But it's not really for riders from Langley to Surrey.

Just a quick comparison. Taking the 502 from 200 st and Fraser to Surrey Central takes 40 minutes in the morning. Driving from the same location via 200 St and Hwy 1 takes 30 minutes at the best of times. So a rapid bus from Langley City via #1 making even a couple of stops at transfer points would take at least 35 to 40 minutes, and that is as long as you don't need to make a transfer.

Therefore, even with Rapid bus, from Langley City, and most of Southern Langley and Cloverdale/Clayton it will be faster to take the current 502 (especially once they finish the widening of Fraser).

The rapid bus service is primarily for Langley residents that want to get over to Lougheed for whatever reason. If you are taking transit to Coquitlam or any point along the Millennium line (and even downtown) the rapid bus will save tons of time, and that is a lot of trips.

What this will mean though is there will be fewer people travelling through Guildford to Surrey Central, freeing up a lot of space on buses between the 2 points. The 502 will probably still be just as busy as ever. For many residents around the Fraser Hwy taking the 502 to Skytrain will still be the fastest way of getting to most places.

[Zassk]

^^ Interesting comparison, but there is another aspect to consider. For all destinations north of the Fraser (even New West), Lougheed is a superior transfer point to Surrey Central. When compared to Surrey Central, Lougheed is 10 minutes closer to Commercial-Broadway, and is even 1 minute closer to Columbia. So if the RapidBus matches the 502 on travel time from Langley, then the RapidBus is the best choice for all trips that involve crossing the Fraser.

[officedweller]

Renders from the Buzzer Flickr page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebuzzer/

How the heck the guideway would swing around from King George to head south
on the next block is puzzling - but it's just a render:

[xd_1771]

The options revealed seem improper and messed up. None of the options appear even close to acceptable if we are going to promote Surrey city growth where actually needed, and certain routes seem purposely excluded, i.e. the loss in capacity on 104th no matter what the option is disturbing. At best I would support LRT connection as long as the LRT does not interfere with 104th in such way, but I will be increasingly supportive of this option if it is changed to accomodate RRT. It seems Translink is more focused on trying to move people into Vancouver and this is not the case. Surrey is the focal point we are looking for. As perhaps the fastest growing city in this metro, such expanded option will be required just about right away, or there will be problems - many, many problems. It also appears that transit shaping growth is being made too much of a focus. I can support transit shaping growth, but only where growth is already there and could be expanded further. This is the case of building the Expo Line to Metrotown & New West. The Millenium Line was perhaps for the first few years a case of failure in the growth-shaping plans and even currently it has the lowest ridership out of all the Skytrain lines - and similar to Guildford, an important connection point (Broadway/S Vancouver) was completely left out. Now money has to be spent to expand Broadway and it has to be pushed forward to sooner than all the other options due to urgent need, and this could easily be the same case for Guildford.

[nname]

Although I don't like any of those alternatives... Just to rank those in term of a few items that has quantitative values in 2041:

Capital Cost per Daily Rider: (calculated by me)
$5.65k - BRT2
$6.59k - BRT1
$8.24k - RRT2
$10.00k - LRT3
$11.36k - Best Bus
$11.63k - LRT2
$11.84k - RRT3
$15.09k - LRT4
$15.56k - LRT1
$16.39k - RRT1

Operation Cost per Daily Rider: (calculated by me)
$118.42 - RRT3
$152.94 - RRT2
$200.00 - BRT2
$210.08 - RRT1
$222.22 - BRT1
$233.34 - LRT3
$283.02 - LRT4
$302.33 - LRT2
$355.56 - LRT1
$1109.09 - Best Bus

Total Transit Ridership in SoF Region: (given by report)
790k - RRT2
781k - BRT1
780k - LRT1
771k - LRT3, RRT1
770k - LRT2
768k - BRT2
748k - Best Bus
740k - RRT3
726k - LRT4
710k - Do Nothing

Annual SoF Rider Time Saving: (given by report)
9.5m-hr - RRT1
5.4m-hr - RRT2
3.4m-hr - BRT1, BRT2, RRT3
3.2m-hr - LRT2
3.1m-hr - LRT1, LRT3
1.8m-hr - Best Bus
0.5m-hr - LRT4

Transit Mode Share: (given by report)
14.5% - RRT1
14.3% - RRT2
14.1% - Everything else
13.9% - LRT4
13.8% - Do nothing


So given these values, RRT option 2 is probably the best of those options?

[Whalleyboy]

rrt option 2 was my personal pick for quite a while. although i would have love to see LRT instead of BRT run out to langley.
I never got why they didnt put any proposal out mixing LRT and RRT together

[xd_1771]

Aside from the fact that some important communities are being missed to some extent, I don't have a huge issue with RRT2, as long as essential city corridors aren't compromised. However it does seem to promote transport to Vancouver more than transport to Surrey.

I'm a rather big fan of this plan that my good friend created though:

[Whalleyboy]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

Aside from the fact that some important communities are being missed to some extent, I don't have a huge issue with RRT2, as long as essential city corridors aren't compromised. However it does seem to promote transport to Vancouver more than transport to Surrey.

I'm a rather big fan of this plan that my good friend created though:

Well with rrt route 2 there still possiblities of extenting skytrain down the old interurban route to cloverdale/langley if time comes and could be done. It might be a bit longer then fraser. but by skytrain it would probably be faster then driving fraser hwy. Plus would probably help grow up newton even more. Plus would put central at the centre of the line thus making it look even better for bussiness to invest into

[Millennium2002]

Originally Posted by Whalleyboy

RRT option 2 was my personal pick for quite a while, although I would have love to see LRT instead of BRT run out to Langley.
I never got why they didn't put any proposal out mixing LRT and RRT together.

I believe it's because they seemed to have capped the cost of any alternative at a manageable price of roughly $2 billion... taking a quick glance, none of the alternatives exceed more than $2.5 billion, and combining say BRT 1 (partly preferred except for lack of connections to other places) with say BRT 1 (preferred except for lack of capacity on some routes) or LRT 2 (preferred for expansion capability) results in a much higher price than that. Given the state of TransLink finances and bickering over priorities, I wouldn't try to push it further than the de-facto limit.

One question I have would be why boardings for BRT 1 would be so high compared to LRT 2, which is my personal favourite at this point considering it leaves the option to build RRT in the future down Fraser Hwy without needing to seemingly destroy a whole lot.

(And BTW yes, I've decided to relent and change my mind... SkyTrain to Guildford may not be a good idea for a long while after all... although the road capacity loss is still unacceptable. Anyway, moving on...)

[xd_1771]

Originally Posted by allan_kuan

One question I have would be why boardings for BRT 1 would be so high compared to LRT 2, which is my personal favourite at this point considering it leaves the option to build RRT in the future down Fraser Hwy without needing to seemingly destroy a whole lot.

(And BTW yes, I've decided to relent and change my mind... SkyTrain to Guildford may not be a good idea for a long while after all... although the road capacity loss is still unacceptable. Anyway, moving on...)

Well first of all that just proves a few things: 1. does translink even know what the heck they are doing, and 2. LRT does not provide any suitable benefit over BRT.

Concerning Skytrain to Guildford, I think some people are forgetting that an expansion to the largest mall in the SOF is taking place? I can see how they are trying to make Guildford slightly more accessible from the west Skytrain or not, but from the south (east) there doesn't seem to be a huge improvement. I would much rather prefer a "big dipper" route that uses 152nd over the Fraser Highway thru Green Timbers to bring people to & through this new expanded mall. Otherwise it'd be a huge investment waste and the local economy would plunder further from the mess it already is. Take my word for it, the numbers are already there, and the numbers will come even more and from all directions.

I don't understand why the road capacity loss too when there seems to be room to expand 104th into 3 lanes/direction with just a bit of expropriation. It's the only route that they're picking on and giving a worse option for (with no 4-lane option), and probably one of the most congested as well. Even the alternate routes are getting clogged and ruining local travel patterns, 100th doesn't hold up as well as before with backups now being a frenzy @ 156th & 154th and this is really affecting local traffic movements including my own. Four-laning 100th would probably be a requirement with any road capacity reduction on 104th along with a massive upgrade to 108th (i.e. left turn lanes & all 96th ave style), as well as massive reconfiguration of certain intersections such as 104th @ 154th to accomodate a major changes of movements. In the end it'd be easier and cheaper to keep the two lanes/direction on 104th and make fewer expropriations on the sides, rather than just about downgrading one road and upgrading two roads with expropriations in many places. As 96th is not really a direct route into either Guildford or Whalley and does not even see direct connection from the Highway, I don't see how it could succeed as a major replacement except for those few shortcutters. In addition, Highway 1 will actually lose an entire lane for 104th, something decided by the Gateway program due to traffic volumes heading into Surrey by this road. It seems other projects for now have been designed to accomodate 104th as a priority, but why ruin it and ruin a lot of other things in the process?

[twoNeurons]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

Concerning Skytrain to Guildford, I think some people are forgetting that an expansion to the largest mall in the SOF is taking place? I can see how they are trying to make Guildford slightly more accessible from the west Skytrain or not, but from the south (east) there doesn't seem to be a huge improvement. I would much rather prefer a "big dipper" route that uses 152nd over the Fraser Highway thru Green Timbers to bring people to & through this new expanded mall. Otherwise it'd be a huge investment waste and the local economy would plunder further from the mess it already is. Take my word for it, the numbers are already there, and the numbers will come even more and from all directions.

Yes... not just from the West via SkyTrain. People will continue to come to Guildford from a lot of different places... and mostly by car. I don't think the Guildford expansion DEPENDS on SkyTrain/RRT/LRT at ALL... otherwise, they wouldn't be expanding it. To say that the local economy will plummet because of a lack of a train line to a mall is slightly disingenuous, don't you think? I don't know how in one breath it can be argued that 104th is too busy for cars, and then argue that RRT along 104th will give a massive boost to the mall from pedestrians.

Metrotown works because it's an established commuter route and between dense clusters. Guildford, however?